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Updated: Aug 5, 2026
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Recording Mouse Ultrasonic Vocalizations to Evaluate Social Communication
Published on: June 5, 2016
Detecting and Assigning Ultrasonic Vocalizations to Individual Mice during Social Interactions
Kaihang Chen1, Claudia J Collins2, Christyana M Kawar2
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware.
Journal of Visualized Experiments : Jove
|July 27, 2026
Summary
Researchers developed a new method to track ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in mice. This technique links individual mouse calls to specific behaviors, advancing the study of mouse social communication.
Area of Science:
- Animal Behavior
- Bioacoustics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Mice (Mus musculus) use ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) for social communication.
- Identifying individual vocalizing mice is difficult due to lack of visual cues and high frequencies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe a method for recording synchronized video and ultrasonic audio data during multi-animal social interactions.
- To enable simultaneous capture of behavior and vocal activity in mice.
- To provide a framework for linking vocal communication to individual behavior.
Main Methods:
- Recording synchronized video and ultrasonic audio data.
- Utilizing a computational pipeline for multi-animal tracking, vocalization detection, sound-source localization, and assignment.
- Implementing validation procedures for tracking accuracy, vocalization extraction, localization precision, and assignment confidence.
Main Results:
- Successful individual-resolved vocalization tracking in a four-animal dataset.
- Spatially precise sound-source estimates.
- Quantitative measures of vocal output and acoustic features.
Conclusions:
- The described protocol offers a robust framework for studying mouse vocal communication.
- Enables downstream analyses of sex differences, individual variability, and social communication.
- Facilitates linking vocalizations to specific behaviors in freely interacting mice.
